The Dragon's Child Bride
by limited-sight
Summary: The Malfoy wizarding tradition of choosing mates for their children. The story of Draco's child bride returned from the dead. WIP, DM OC
1. Chapter 1

A/N Well, I'm going to try this again and hope for a good response. This is my story from It will be...um, watered down a bit for little eyes. I'm not going to be a btch about reviews, but if you read my story and have an opinion, they are appreciated. Thanks to my beta, Megan. I'm relatively new to the workings of this site, so if I cross any lines of decency, please let me know and it will altered accordingly.

DISCLAIMER: It's all JKR's except my own character. Everything else is hers and I curse that fact daily. That applies to all chapters. In addition, I make no money from this. All hail the great JKR...

THE DRAGON'S CHILD BRIDE

Chapter 1: Can't Escape the Memories

Lucius Malfoy was in a foul mood. Not to say he was ever very pleasant, but this indeed was what he would call a foul mood by personal standards. He needed to get out, if only for a few minutes, to get away from Narcissa's mindless complaining. Despite the cool and collected front she showed at her many parties and what other social gatherings, when not in the public eye, Narcissa was downright bitchy.

'A walk,' he thought to himself, ' a walk around the grounds should clear my head.' He was just putting on a jacket to fight off the late October chill when Narcissa came around the corner.

"And where are you going?" she asked with a clearly false air of pleasantry. Lucius sighed. Why did she have to be so damned nosy all the time?

"For a walk around the grounds" he mumbled. Narcissa clapped her hands together and smiled brightly.

"O, that's a lovely idea! A walk around the grounds, just the two of us. I'll get my coat." Before he could utter a word of protest, she was up the stairs to fetch one of her many coats. There was no way out of it. Lucius' walk of escapism would now be in the company of the only one he wanted to escape.

He waited for a full ten minutes at the bottom of the stairs while she tried on jacket after jacket, trying judge which one worked best as a 'I'm-walking-with-my-husband' coat. He didn't bother to yell at her to hurry up. That would only incite her to come out of the bedroom to yell, then proceed to ask him if he liked the coat she was currently wearing. No matter what he said she would proceed to model all her coats one by one. If he actually wanted to get outside, Lucius knew that he would have to be patient.

She finally came down the stairs wearing a waist length red zip-up jacket. Despite how much he could loathe Narcissa sometimes, she truly was beautiful. In the back of Lucius' mind, he knew at some level she was a trophy wife. A bit more beauty then brains perhaps, but he chalked it all up to the circumstance and all those things that were beyond his control. Really, he hadn't chosen her, his father had when Lucius was too young to find anything attractive in the fairer sex. He had no other choice than to marry his chosen bride.

Choosing a mate for one's child was an old and aristocratic tradition that had been practiced in the Malfoy family for as far back as they could trace their lineage. It made perfect sense. How could one marry into more power, money, and good breeding if one were sidetracked by silly things like love? Yes, it really was better to have the parents choose in these matters. It was a three-fold process. Once the parents had come to an agreement, usually somewhere between the child's birth and 2nd birthday, they would perform the binding spell, pledging to do whatever it took to nurture the children's relationship and raise them to follow in these ways. The second was usually performed at the younger child's sixth birthday. After the children received their wands, they would execute their own binding spell to commit to one another, and from then until the wedding, each would wear a symbol of their union. And the final spell was performed on their wedding day, sealing them together forever.

Their marriage hadn't all been bad. There was a time Lucius and Narcissa truly did love each other, as opposed to tolerating one another like they were doing now. And she had done well by him; she had bore him a son and worthy heir, Draco, and had even provided some connections for that son to profit from. And it was through Narcissa, he had come upon finding Draco a wife for when he was of proper age. She had been nearly perfect in every way…

She was such a darling girl, just a few weeks younger then Draco. Her family, Layla and Jonathan Stanners from the American elite Stanners, were equally as prestigious then the Malfoy family. It was a natural decision. It didn't hurt that the mother's had been best friends since childhood, either. If Lucius hadn't known better, he would have sworn that the two mothers had planned everything out, from the conception to their children's children. He supposed it was one of those women things he would never understand. But fate was with the women, and the decision was made once they knew their babies genders. Their first spell was performed mere hours after the birth of the Stanners daughter Laylani.

If Lucius would have ever wanted a girl, he would have wanted his daughter to be exactly like her. He loved Laylani as much as he did his own child. She was a beautiful girl with a big heart. She seemed to bring out the best in in Draco. He was a very fussy baby until she was introduced to his life. He would cry for hours, nothing would appease him, but once she was put in the crib with him, he would calm down immediately and gurgle with something that sounded a lot like happiness.

Out of all the arranged marriages in the history of the Malfoy's, this one seemed truly meant to be. While they grew up there couldn't have been a happier pair of children. They did everything together, holding hands and laughing. Draco would pick her flowers and taught her to climb trees; in turn Laylani would tell him stories and showed him showed him how to dive in the Malfoy's swimming pool. She was his princess and he was her knight in shining armor.

It was shortly after the second tier of their binding that things went horribly, horribly wrong. Having pledged themselves to one another and their parents pledged to encourage their bond, they had bedrooms at one another's houses to stay in for the overnights which they frequently had. That night in early August at the Stanners seaside cottage was just such a night. The children complained about the heat so much, Jonathan suggested that they camp out in their backyard, to which the kids readily agreed. He transfigured some sheets into a two man tent and a set of sleeping bags. He really saw no need for adult supervision; they were too young to get into serious mischief, and they would only be a two minute walk away from the house. Jonathan set up the tent as the sun went down, set up the sleeping bags and said his goodnights to Draco and Laylani, and zipped up the tent. Somewhere between then and daybreak did it all happen.

Layla was the first to make the discovery. She found Jonathan dead, sprawled on the lawn with his throat slit, and Laylani was gone without a trace. No one was sure what exactly happened. The theory that Lucius, along with the Ministry, chose to believe, the one that seemed most credible, was muggles were the culprits. Lucius was used to having vagrant muggles dig through his trash or try to set up camp on his land from time to time, and once they had even tried to break into his house. He knew they weren't above this. It was decided that what most likely happened was Laylani was outside of the tent and a drifter had attacked her. Jonathan heard the commotion and came to save his little girl only to be killed. The hobo had taken Laylani with him to do god knows what, and probably killed her. They never found her body. The least comforting theory, but for all the information they could gather, the most likely.

No one in those happy little families was ever the same afterwards. Not long after her husband was buried, Layla hung herself. Her suicide note simply said she had no one left to live for, to bury her next to her husband and, god willing, someday her daughter as well she left all her wealth and estate to young Draco, because he was her "only angel left."

After the funeral, Narcissa went into a self-imposed exile from everything. For weeks on end she stayed in her room, doing nothing but sleeping and crying and rarely, eating. Lucius began to renew his alliances with the Dark Lord that he had once given up for the sake of his children in attempts to somehow make peace with what happened by getting revenge on muggles, all muggles. As for Draco, he was all alone. He wasn't allowed to see his mother, and his father's presence was sporadic at best. He was left to himself in a situation he didn't understand. The only thing he knew, that he was told, was that his beloved princess was dead, and every muggle, muggle-lover, and mudblood should pay for it.

Although the Malfoy family eventually moved past that point, they were dysfunctional at best. After those first hard weeks, Narcissa emerged with the false sense of happiness she always wore to that very day, distant as a wife and mother. She would throw herself into elaborate social galas for the observer's sake, trying to make everything as status quo as possible. Lucius was no longer the man who would read stories and play games with his child, but a cold and heartless Death Eater, who was convinced his son should no longer behave as a child, but needed to grow up and fast. Draco conformed to all of this, putting away childhood things, taking on the demure of a grown, and arrogant, man who would coolly be party to his mother's gatherings with little interest.

As for Laylani, Lucius supposed they would never know…

Lucius pulled himself back into the present, mentally scolding himself for bringing up memories of …her. With Narcissa at his side he pulled open the door, trying to think of things to talk about with his wife on their walk and nearly tripped over the unconscious body laying at their feet.


	2. Chapter 2

DISCLAIMER: It's all JKR's except my own character. Everything else is hers and I curse that fact daily. That applies to all chapters. In addition, I make no money from this. All hail the great JKR...

Chapter 2: The Body

Narcissa gasped. Lucius reeled back in disgust. It seemed it was another muggle vagrant, and this one had the audacity to sleep on his porch! Lucius eyed her up and down, trying to control his gag reflex.

It was a girl and at the very most she was perhaps 18. It was hard to tell though; she was such a scrawny thing. Certainly not starving, but she did look like she had gone without much more often then not. It was just another thing Lucius hated about Muggles, they were procreating like animals, but couldn't feed the ones they had now. Most of her clothes were torn and hastily mended, and she wore no shoes.

The only thing different about this muggle then all the rest that were found on the Malfoy's property, was that she looked like she had at least tried to keep clean. The stains on her clothes looked to have been scrubbed until the material faded. Her brown hair was relatively neat, all things considered, brushed and in a ponytail. Her skin was no where near as grimy as it could have been and she didn't stink as much as her fellow vagrants. A clean muggle, but a muggle none the less. And any muggle who found their way onto Malfoy property were subjected to the Death Eaters and then killed.

Lucius prodded at her with his foot "Up!" he yelled, "Get up, get into the house!" But she didn't move. She didn't even wake up. 'Perfect,' he thought. Fate had not only seen fit to plague his land with muggles, but now a dead muggle was on his stoop.

"Alright Narcissa, It seems she's dead. Take down the obvious charms and spells, and send round for the p…po…poleece." No matter how many times he had to deal with them, he could never wrap his mouth around that word. Muggles had such stupid names for things. "Let them take care of their own trash."

Narcissa rolled her eyes. Men could be so stupid. "Lucius, she's not dead. Look, she's still breathing." and indeed she was. Her chest moved up and down as the girl took slow, shallow breaths.

"Then why won't she wake up?" said Lucius impatiently. He was not at all inclined to deal with a muggle faking death.

"I think," Narcissa said slowly, searching her mind for the limited knowledge she had of medicine, "She's in a coma."

"_Well what the hell does that mean_!" Lucius yelled, now furious. First his wife just wouldn't leave him the hell alone, and now she was spouting off medical jabber. 

Startled, Narcissa tried to explain what she knew of it "It means she's asleep and she can't wake up right now. Maybe not ever."

Lucius was incensed "_Well, isn't that just bloody fabulous! We've got a half dead muggle at our door and- And how the hell did she get here anyway_?" Maybe Lucius didn't know about comas, but from what he could tell, when one had one, they didn't move very fast and she had to have gotten there somehow.

"_How should I know_?" yelled an exasperated Narcissa. She hated dealing with her husband at the best of times. When he threw a tantrum it was almost more then she could stand. She took a deep breath and said "Lucius, just calm down. We can just call the po-leese, and they'll take her to the do…the doctuh……the muggle mediwizard."

"Fine," he said with a dramatic sigh, "Call them." He began to make his way into the house. Narcissa gave off a frustrated sigh, much like the sound of air coming out of a tire.

"Lucius, we can't just leave her here. Give me your wand, I'll take her inside." Lucius did not like the idea of a half-dead muggle in his house for reasons other then torture. But he couldn't see the muggle authorities taking it well to find their half-dead muggle still on his stoop, either. Reluctantly, he handed her his wand.

"Mobilicorpus!"

The girl's body levitated off the ground. Narcissa was just about to take her through the doorway when she noticed a thin silver chain with a charm hanging off the girl's scrawny neck. At closer inspection, the charm was silver 'D' with a gold snake woven through it. Narcissa's eyes went wide. She stood there for a full thirty seconds just staring at the charm in her hand, a million thoughts running through her head.

"Lucius!" she screamed "_Lucius_!"


	3. Chapter 3

DISCLAIMER: It's all JKR's except my own character. Everything else is hers and I curse that fact daily. That applies to all chapters. In addition, I make no money from this. All hail the great JKR...

They stared at her limp body that they had placed on the couch as they whispered to each other. Neither knew why they were whispering. It wasn't as if she could hear them. She couldn't even move.

"It can't be." said Lucius, "It just can't be. She's dead. She's been dead for eleven years. There's no way. She just can't…" He trailed off. He didn't know how to finish that thought. This girl lying there, just by lying there in his house, was a living negation of everything he had known over the last eleven years, and his mind balked at that. She just couldn't be…could she?

"Oh, Lucius don't be stupid. She couldn't be wearing the chain and not be Laylani." Lucius gaped. Narcissa hadn't talked back to him like that in years. "You know how the union symbols work; you wore your own for twelve years!"

Lucius had to concede that to his wife. He knew the chain could not be removed until they were married, nor could anyone else wear it. The chain would simply vanish.

Narcissa took her eyes away from the girl to look at her husband. "Lucius," she said softly. "Please go send for the mediwizard." He turned on his heel and made for the fireplace in the room across the hall. He had never been an intuitive husband, but somehow he knew his wife needed to be alone with the girl.

Narcissa approached the girl's sleeping form and dropped down to her knees. She brushed stray hairs out of the girls face and tucked them behind her ear. She could see it now. She didn't know how she could have missed it. The hair, the bone structure; she looked exactly like Layla. Narcissa sat on her heels and couldn't help but remember…

_The afternoon Layla announced she was pregnant, two weeks after Narcissa's own revelation._

"Oh, 'Rissa, wouldn't it be lovely to have two girls?" Layla wondered aloud. "They could be best friends just like us. We could dress them up and take them out for tea. It would be like our own little club!" Narcissa had smiled at the thought. "Or," she continued, "We could have a boy and a girl and they could get married! Wouldn't it be lovely, to have someone to love you your whole life long?". 

"What if we had two boys?" Narcissa had asked. There was moment of silence, and then the two women had dissolved into a fit of giggles.

The day Laylani was born, she had been in the delivery room for support, clutching one of Layla's hands as Jonathan held the other. God, how Layla had screamed. But Narcissa knew it had all been worth it when the mediwitch announced it was a girl.

"A girl," cooed Layla as they put her in her mother's arms. She was beautiful. If Narcissa hadn't known better she would have sworn she saw that baby smile.

"Have you chosen a name?" asked the mediwitch.

"Laylani," said Jonathan as he beamed at his new family with pride.

"Laylani Rissa Stanners." said Layla.

Or the first night Laylani had spent at her house. Earlier in the day she had let she and Draco play on the lawn while she read on the porch. Suddenly Laylani let out a wail. Narcissa's feet took wings at the first sound of that girl in pain. By the time she had reached them, Draco was already holding her hand and patting her back giving her childish babbles of assurances. It seemed Laylani had been crawling and scraped her knee on a rock. Narcissa had performed a quick healing spell and kissed it better. Laylani had laughed. Later that night, Narcissa tucked the children in. She gave Laylani a kiss on the forehead and whispered

"You've had such a big day. Sleep well, Lani, and tell me all your dreams in the morning." 

And now here she was before her, unconscious on Narcissa's couch. During the last eleven years, that dear little girl had somehow become this young woman, underfed, dirty and not even conscious. Laylani had probably been through unspeakable hells. But she had come back to them. Alive.

Narcissa was pulled back to the present as Lucius cleared his throat from behind her. She rose and nodded towards the mediwizard. He moved closer to Laylani's limp form and began to unpack his bag of books and potions. Lucius put his arm around his wife.

"Come Narcissa; let's give him space to work." He led her to the study for a cup of tea.

It was nearly a full hour until the mediwizard emerged from the room. He took a deep breath and began to speak. "It's not a coma, technically. She is, however, in a very deep sleep." He went on to explain. "From what I've seen, her body was already in a horrible state of malnutrition and quite weak. Somehow, something scared her enough to shock her into a spontaneous apparition. That drained what little energy she had left. She's exhausted physically, mentally and magically." They were silent for a moment

Finally Lucius spoke. "Will she be alright?"

"Physically, yes." said the mediwizard, "She will sleep soundly for a day or two, and will be tired and fragile for a few weeks after that but nothing to worry about. Emotionally, I don't know. From the trauma I've observed on her body she's been through things not mentioned in polite company."

Narcissa choked on a sob. "How could she 'spontaneously' apparate? It takes months of training and great concentration to do, let alone do it properly."

"It's actually more common then you'd think," replied the mediwizard, "Spontaneous apparition is just another kind of the body's fight-or-flight response. Most likely, she was faced with a situation where she felt immediate and extreme danger that she felt she could not overpower, and the tremendous fear sent her body into spontaneous apparition. From what Lucius has told me, she probably has limited control over her magic, and when she would be faced with intense emotion, her magic would be controlled by instinct rather than conscious thought. The strange thing is most spontaneous apparitions appear at St. Mungo's, a muggle hospital or with the police. A place where they feel like they will be safe. For some reason, hers is here."

The mediwizard gave them instructions on her care and told them to send for him immediately when she awoke. Lucius and his wife stood at the door. "Well, now what?" he said. Lucius had always been in control of everything, always in command of the situation. And now he felt useless in the face of one unconscious girl.

"Get the house elves." said Narcissa quietly. "Have them clean and set up her old room. I'll put her into something more comfortable to sleep in." Lucius nodded dumbly and headed for the kitchen. Narcissa levitated the girl's body to her own room. 

She began to search through her numerous sleeping garments. She looked once to the girl then back to the rows upon rows of just her nightclothes, and felt so guilty she began to cry. She hadn't once looked for her. Narcissa had spent the last eleven years in the lap of luxury, getting everything her heart desired, and the girl she had loved so much didn't even have her health. Narcissa hastily dressed Laylani in a white silk full-length nightgown.

As she lay on the bed, Narcissa performed a few cleaning spells on Laylani's hair and skin. The change in appearance was remarkable. When clean and with most of the marks and bruises having been removed from her body, it was easy to see that this was no ordinary girl. She was beautiful, angelic with her brown hair spread out around her head like a halo, her pale skin practically shone. Beautiful.

Narcissa moved the limp body to Laylani's room. She hesitated outside the door. This would be her first time back in that room since Laylani had disappeared. At the time they couldn't bear to be in it, nor bear to change it. They had simply left it empty under minimal care. Narcissa took a step forward into the lilac colored room. She smiled, even amidst her tears. She was in the room she had not seen for eleven years, and didn't feel the heart-wrenching sadness of having lost her all those years ago. She felt the joy of having her returned alive to them.

Narcissa drew back the covers and gently set Laylani down. As she tucked the girl in, she pressed a light kiss to her forehead.

"You've had such a big day. Sleep well, Lani, and tell me all your dreams in the morning."


End file.
